Is it possible to survive on a $30 per week grocery budget?

I am single and have about $30 per week for groceries which I find hard to do and get a balanced diet. I do go to multiple stores to get the best prices and use coupons the best I can. The thing that bothers me, is when a staple item I use is on sale, I normally don’t have an extra $5 (let alone more) to spend to purchase it. How can I stock-up on sale items when I have such a little bit to get by with anyways? -Renee

Contrary to what many people may tell you, I think you can definitely eat well on $30 per week — and you can find a little wiggle room to buy ahead, too.

My husband and I both lived on a $30 per week grocery budget when we were first married. This included all the ingredients to make 21 meals for both of us each week, plus all household products.

A Can-Do Attitude Is a Must

Don’t let yourself think, “There’s no way I can eat on this small of a budget.” Instead, decide that you’re going to do the best you can with the resources you have.

Make it a game, of sorts, to see how well you can do on a little. By challenging yourself to exercise creativity and think outside the box, you’ll enjoy it a lot more. And when you’re enjoying something, it no longer seems so difficult.

In order to be able to scrape together enough money to start buying ahead and building up your stockpile, I’d encourage you to commit to eating really simply for a few weeks. Cut your grocery budget back to $25, and save the extra $5 to invest in those rock-bottom, can’t miss deals — or to purchase almost-free toiletries and household products.

If you’re thinking there’s no way you can eat on $25 per week, here’s a grocery list and menu plan I came up with:

Sample $25 Grocery List and Menu

Prices are approximate and will likely vary a little by area.You may be able to beat these prices with great sales and/or coupons.

Beans and rice with steamed veggies on the side
Chicken, rice, and carrot soup
Baked chicken breast on a bed of rice, steamed veggies
Rice, chopped chicken, and steamed veggies mixed together and sprinkled with saltHomemade refried beans, baked chicken, steamed veggies
Chicken and veggie stirfry served over rice
Leftovers

Yes, this isn’t a very exciting menu. But if you’re willing to scrimp for a few weeks and eat very simply, it will free up that extra $5 or so each week to start buying a few extra things that are on a great sale (like a bag of flour, like that incredible deal on strawberries — some to eat now, some to freeze for later, or that fantastic special on beef).

As you invest some of your grocery money in the rock-bottom specials and deals, this helps you to build up more of a stockpile so that, over time, you’ll be able to have more and more variety without increasing your budget.

Want to cut your grocery budget but don’t know where to start? I highly recommend checking out Grocery University. This step-by-step course has helped thousands of families lower their grocery budget — and it can help you, too! Read all about it here.

Comments

Not sure what I’m doing wrong but we spend about $125/week for our family of 4! I would love to cut that down. I’ll be looking around your site to see if there is help for that…my problem is variety–I don’t like to have the same thing often and I wouldn’t want to have rice every day, but it would be worth the sacrifice to be able to build up our emergency fund.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this post! I am so glad that I read it. I had not stepped foot in an Aldi for at least 20 years due to stereotypes and such.(They only sold junk food and highly processed foods.) I realize how WRONG I was!! I am so glad to have read this post because I went there today and bought oranges, strawberries, bananas, cucumbers, lettuce, turkey bacon, english muffins and cream cheese. (those last three were cravings!!) I got to the register and the total was $14!!! I was in shock! I had the misconception that with a super tight grocery budget we could not afford fresh fruits and vegetables. With the whole BPA risk with canned vegetables I didn’t want to poison my baby and it broke my heart when I didn’t offer fresh veggies and fruit. Now I have figured out a way to change it! Thank you so much for your dedication to offering suggestions to make grocery budgetting work for EVERYONE!